Tampa Port Director Wainio to lead economic development group - Business First of Columbus:

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FSTED is a public policyu making group for Florida created by statute and charged with enhancinbthe state's economic development mission “b facilitating the implementation of important seaportt improvement projects,” a release said. The councill was created within the and is comprised of the port directorsdof Florida’s 14 publicly owned seaports and representativesx from the DOT, Departmenr of Community Affairs, and Governor's Offices of Tourism, Trade and Economic Development. The combined annua l economic impactof Florida’s 14 deep-watee seaports is $82 the release said.
The portse collectively generate morethan 350,000 directy and indirect jobs, making it the largest economic engine in west-centrao Florida, responsible for nearly 100,000o jobs and $8 billion in annual economic impact a release said. Wainio is just gettiny started in his FSTED role butsaid there’sx a clear need to quickl reach out to other council members in order to work on improving a developing strategic “That’s so we can go forwars in Tallahassee speaking with one voice in term s of the financial and infrastructurer needs of statewide port system,” he He believes Florida ports have seen statewidw funding whittled to nearly nothing.
“We’rew the only state in the nationj that has significant portsthat doesn’t have the kind of financial supportf from the state.” An FDOT study this year confirmed that an investmen t in seaports provides a 7-to-1 returj ratio, he said. The challenge in in part, is that each of the state’s different portsz offers diverse services, specialties and governance policies, making it a challenge to presentf in aunified method. “It’es hard to for us to go to [Washington, with a collective voice to get he said. “We’ll now work to bringt the cohesion and go forward with a moreunifiedr platform.
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